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Coronavirus News: Bicycle shops rolling along quite well amid COVID-19 pandemic

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Bicycle shops rolling along quite well amid COVID-19 pandemic

In New Jersey, used and new bicycles are in high demand even during a 4-month economic recession due to the coronavirus pandemic.

NEW JERSEY (WABC) -- Bicycle shops are still rolling along pretty well amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In New Jersey, used and new bicycles are in high demand.

"We're definitely way down in inventory with like normal bikes with like $100 average bikes," said Kerri Martin, of Second Life Bikes in Asbury Park. "Got a couple on the floor yesterday morning and they literally can be gone within a minute or half hour."

At Bicycle Source in Pompton Plains, Willy Sheehan says in about 4 weeks they should have more, but closed gyms and kids needing to play outside have tripled demand. He adds it's about supply and COVID-19.

"It started over in southeast Asia and that's where all the bikes come from, so the ripple effect is coming to us now," Sheehan said. "In other words, they stopped production on bicycles, so there's nothing being shipped over here. I usually keep up to 400 bicycles in store and now it's just a sea of repairs."

Martin said a lot of people have been dropping off their old bikes to get fixed.

"(It's) a beautiful thing too, like not putting them in a landfill, but realizing that there's life to the old bike they had in their basement," she said.

Martin also had to pause her "Youth Earn-a-Bike" program.

"Kids ages 12 to 18 can come here to learn bike mechanics and get job and life skills, and after 15 hours they earn a bike for themselves, which is not happening right now because we are limiting the amount of people in here," she said.

In the meantime, be sure to stay safe by wearing masks and helmets.